Front Wheel Bearing R&R

[davintosh]

We took the X5 on a somewhat extended highway drive over the weekend, and I noticed some noise that sounds an awful lot like a front bearing going out. So I did some searching and didn't come up with any good writeups on replacing that bearing; mostly just people saying it's a bear and it's best to just hire it out. That seemed odd to me since it doesn't appear to be that much different than replacing a rear wheel bearing on other BMW vehicles, nor much different than other front-drive vehicles. The BMW TIS for this job lists a bunch of special tools, but I've seen several how-to videos on YouTube that show how universal kits can be used instead of the special tools... It just doesn't appear that it should be a terribly difficult job. Or is there something I'm missing in all this?

Also, the BMW TIS doesn't say much about removing the race from the hub, and there's mention of (some dealer shops) that the front hub is destroyed & needs to be replaced when replacing the bearing; is this normal, or is it just that the old bearing race ends up stuck on the hub and might damage it?

Thanks for any tips or pointers or links you can offer!